Africana and Postcolonial Studies Journals
Please share your experiences working with these journals! Feel free to add other journals to the list. Try to stick with this format: each journal should be separated by dashes, and responses under each journal should each have their own bullet and date of posting. Back to Literary Studies Journals ---- ''ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature'' *Had good peer review feedback from this journal. Overall good experience with publishing with them - it was about a year from submission to publication. My only note of caution is that the editor completely changed several sentences within my article, in one case changing the meaning. This was done without my permission and was not changed in the digital version of the article as was promised. *My article also succumbed to an overzealous grad student copy editor, who seemed compelled to change something on every page. Her emendations resulted in a sentence or two that didn't make sense. There's a typo (that was absent from the MS) in the first sentence! The editor was unresponsive to my requests to return the MS to the original form. To my chagrin, this article has been cited several times, so someone has been reading it. I agree about the thorough peer review. Submission to acceptance to publication was a bit sluggish but not egregiously so (18 months? it's been awhile), IIRC. *I have reviewed for them but not (yet) published there (and I am not on the board) -- that in itself gives the J some credibility and status imho. They kept on me to get the review in, and also sent me the follow up revision. They actually listened to me (and whomeevr else, I have no idea.... blind process). I like this journal a lot. * Great peer review, quick feedback and responses from editorial staff. Sent initially August 2013, had revise and resubmit in March, with targeted deadline for June. Submitted on June 4, got accepted July 21. Final editing due by end of August for publication in early 2015. The reader feedback, especially reader #2 was incredibly thorough. Highly recommend publishing with them. * Had a very positive experience here. Submitted May 2014, received acceptance with suggested edits September 2014 with tentative publication date in the spring. Reader feedback was thorough, extremely helpful, and genial. * I also had a positive experience throughout the process. Received a revise and resubmit within about 4 months and an acceptance less than 2 months after resubmitting. The reader reports were thorough and genuinely helpful. As a bonus, they were really professional and easy to work with. ---- ''Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal'' *Awful. Submitted January 2014. Followed up with email in May to editor email address on the site. No response. Followed up on follow up in June. No response. Followed up on follow up to follow up in July, no response, and also contacted the Review Editor. He said he would follow up. It's now August. I sent an email to their graduate assistant, no response. In sum: 8+ months 'in review,' no word on if it's been sent out or if they've contacted the reviewers. Just no. response. (Had wonderful experience, however, with ARIEL above.) ---- ''Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters'' *Avoid! This journal sat on my article for two and a half years without giving me a decision. I inquired every six months, and was repeatedly told that the article was with anonymous reviewers and they expected a decision soon. After I finally emailed them to withdraw the article, I received a rejection within a week. The final decision included no reference to any reviews: I don't think anyone ever actually read the piece. I immediately submitted to another journal and the article was in print in less than a year. (Date of initial submission: 2007) *I agree with the above! *I had a slightly more positive experience but can understand the frustration; initial subission in Jan 2010; full acceptance in Feb 2012 with no requests for revision--but the submission appeared to have undergone 5 peer-reviews and none of these comments were conveyed to me. Am glad to publish there, but the wait period was far too long. 2013: article was published 2 1/2 yrs after submission, with errors that were not in my final copyedited version. I would not publish with this journal again. *A roughly similar experience, and this was just for a book review. Initially submitted 2/2011. They switched to an online submission and review system in 4/2011, so I resubmitted that way. Officially accepted 4/2012, then again 7/2012. It finally appeared in print 2 months later. They seemed to get their act together near the end of my dealing with them. It seemed like a long process for a book review, and it doesn't even appear that anyone read it. ---- ''Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies'' *my ms. does not to have appear to have undergone peer-review before it was accepted. original submission in 5/2010; publication 12/2011; editorial assistant was highly unprofessional and did not respond to emails; however I think she is no longer with the journal ---- ''Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies'' * ---- ''Journal of Commonwealth Literature'' *Did anyone submit here? I just sent them my ms and I am thinking perhaps I should have asked around a bit first. Any input appreciated. ---- ''Journal of Postcolonial Writing'' *Formerly World Literature Written in English. ''Good pedigree and pretty well regarded within the field, and seems to be one of the better organized postcolonial journals out there. 22 months from initial submission to publication - 8 months from submission to conditional acceptance with very helpful reader reviews; just under a year from submission of revised essay to publication. Very strict with word limit, though (required additional cuts even after final acceptance), so don't expect to sneak through with anything over 8000 words. ---- ''Journal of West Indian Literature * ---- ''Postcolonial Studies'' *Poor experience. Submitted article for consideration on 3/21/2013. Did not hear from the editor for almost six months so I sent an inquiry on 8/17/2013. Still no reply, sent another e-mail on 10/4/2013. Editor informed me that there was a significant backlog and my article had not yet begin the review process. Withdrew shortly afterward. The editor was very apologetic and suggested another title. The journal has a good reputation, but if your work is time-sensitive or you need the publication credit sooner rather than later, you might want to look elsewhere. *Awful experience. Submitted an 7.5k article to them. Took them 2+ weeks to find a reader/confirm they'd send it out. The took EIGHT MONTHS to procure a single reader report of two short paragraphs that only addressed one-third of the submitted article (and rejected it for criticizing a "star" in the field and on the board). No second review. Fortunately I had in the meantime submitted it elsewhere after 4 months and it got in there just fine and dandy. Never again for this journal, which seems very in-house (editors are in the same dept/school, one of them a former student of MD, and even the same family (the Seths of AUstralia). They clearly are clique-ish and dont pub outsiders or people on the margins of postcolnial studies. But if it is tepid liberal poco speak you seek, seek no further. ---- ''Postcolonial Text'' *Moved quickly. After two anonymous reviews, received Revise and Resubmit with helpful comments. Did revisions, resubmitted, and had article published. Took four months to get initial decision, six more months before article was in print. (Date of initial submission: 2010) ---- ''Research in African Literatures'' *Moved very quickly. Received the anonymous review in four months. Article was in print 2 months later. *My submission was sent to two readers and an initial decision made in six months. I didn't get to see the readers' reports; instead the editor gave me a Revise and Resubmit decision along with a few key points from the reports. I took a while to revise, but once I resubmitted, the article was accepted in just over two months, and published four months after I submitted a final version. Not counting the time I took on revision, the whole process was one year. (Date of initial submission: 2010) *Submitted article to ral@osu.edu on 5/21/2011. Followed up on 9/26/2011. Received reply within a few days indicating that the article was accepted for a special issue (did not submit for it specifically). Minimal revisions were made by RAL editorial team (notified 10/17/2011) to bring the article into agreement with house style and integrate a few notes, none of which changed the meaning/tone of my arguments. Notified on 11/16/2011 that issue had gone into production with final proof version attached. Article published in February 2012. The whole process was handled quickly and professionally. I was very happy with the experience and the results! *Very positive experience. Had a conditional acceptance in four weeks, with only minor changes necessary. I took a while to get back to them, but after I sent the revised essay, it took about 5 months to get a proofed copy. About two months later, the piece was in print. Very professional staff. Detailed and genuinely helpful reader reports. Great experience. ---- ''Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies'' *Fairly quick and straightforward review process (about three months). Both reader's reports were among the most helpful and to-the-point I've ever received, and were more-or-less in agreement with one another. As a T&f journal, Safundi isn't carried by all U.S. universities, but you'll get a wide readership in South Africa and the Commonwealth. My only complaint is that it seems a bit "clubby," but then so are a lot of field-specific venues. ---- ''Sargasso: Journal of Caribbean Literature, Language, and Culture'' *Publishing in Sargasso was a positive experience. The whole process took approximately 12 months, a rather quick publication given that the journal publishes only twice a year. The Editor responded quickly to all of my inquiries and the 2 sets of comments I received on my essay were quite valuable. Once I submitted a revised version someone cleaned up my bibliography and spent a substantial amount of time copyediting. I appreciate the thematic approach to volumes and the personal touch that came with communication with those who run the journal. Sargasso has a substantial number of institutional subscriptions and a multingual focus. It's available through dLOC but needs a parallel electronic format. ---- ''Small Axe: A Caribbean Platform for Criticism'' *The most prestigious journal in Caribbean studies. When I've published here, people in my field read my work and colleagues not in the field were impressed to see I was in this journal. Read by two anonymous reviewers who gave very good feedback. Six months from initial submission to acceptance, six months from acceptance to seeing the piece in print. (1/2012) *I agree with above. It was impressive, six months from submission the article was in print. ---- ''South Asian Review *This journal moved quickly, and I had excellent feedback from the editor, the readers, and the copy editor. Their comments were rigorous and detailed to the point of pedantry (a description I intend as a compliment), which considerably improved my arguments and my thinking about the larger project that had produced the article. However, I can't help wondering how much of this welcome scrutiny was due to my being obviously not South Asian: the other articles in "my" issue contained pretty obvious errors. *7/2014- Beware! SAR accepted my article and then edited it heavily, making substantial changes without then sending me a page proof. I am very unhappy with many of the changes and feel that they are detrimental to the quality of the article overall. I contacted the editor who said they would investigate, but I never heard from them again, even after sending two follow-up querys. ---- ''sx salon: A Small Axe Literary Platform *A great place for publishing reviews and interviews. The online format lets them get work out quickly: if you submti something relatively polished can be just a couple months from first contact to publication. Even with the speed, they have careful copyeditors that result in professional issues. ---- Transition * Does anyone have experience submitting here? Any idea how long it takes for submissions to be reviewed & level of feedback? many thanks in advance. ---- ''Wasafiri: The International Magazine of Contemporary Writing'' *Had a pleasant experience writing a review for this publication; I would recommend it to others (2011-2) ----